There are lots of benefits of using Twitter as a recruiting tool, from the huge user base of engaged professionals, hashtag and keyword search-ability, the ability to segregate users into talent pools using lists and many more!

However, despite Twitter now being the second most popular social network for searching for candidates after LinkedIn, a lot of recruiters are still unsure about how to use it for sourcing.

If you want to learn a bit more about finding talent using Twitter search, hopefully this guide put together by our friend and social recruiting expert, Andy Headworth, can be of help to you.

1) Start with an exact search

Enter what you are looking for in quotation marks. e.g. a specific job title – “software developer”

2) Add an alternative search

You can do this by using OR between terms. Don’t forget the quotation marks on the second search too! e.g. “software developer” OR “engineer”

3) Add an additional search term

If you have multiple search requirements you can look up people who have both qualities using AND between terms. e.g. “marketing” AND “social media”

4) Exclude certain elements

You can do this by using the minus signs before adding a word to the search. e.g. “software developer” -android

5) View all tweets addressed to a certain user

You can do this by typing in to:username (no @ necessary).

6) View all tweets sent from a certain user

You can do this by typing from:username.

7) Search for tweets near or in a particular location

Type in near:location, or near:location within:5mi

8) Search for tweets between two dates

Type in since: 2014/05/02 until:2015:09/28.

9) Search for all tweets that contain links

Type in the term you are looking for links of followed by “filter:links. e.g “social media marketing” filter:links

10) Find specific content

Enter the term you are looking for plus the source. e.g. “social media marketing” source:Instagram